Skip to main content

Hello,

I’ve done a trip once with interrail. So I know the basics, inbound-outbound, travel days, the difference between trip and journey etc. I was using a flexi paper pass back then.
Now I am planning to do another trip and I have few questions about the mobile pass.

My understanding is that once I activate it (and I need to do this in order to book the reservations) - my trip gets fixed and I cannot change it, i.e. I am going from place A to B on the days X, Y, Z and I cannot change it either to be from place A to C or on days, X, Y, Q.


But does it really work like that? I remember when I used paper pass each day I could decide that I want to travel that day and get on that or another train. I had a lot of flexibility.
I would like to give an example below:

Let’s say I need 4 travel days: 13, 14, 18 and 30th

 

  1. I need to book a reservation for a train on 13th. If I understood correctly, in order to do that I need to submit a trip in the app and activate my pass. From that moment my trip  is fixed for those days. Can I change my mind during my trip and decide that I want to stay somewhere for a longer time and hence change a travel day from, say 18th to 20th?
     
  2. I heard and read that I can update and modify my journeys during my travel. For example, in case of missing the connection train beacuse of earlier train getting delayed. I want to make sure that it is possible to modify your journeys.
     
  3. Okay, during my trip on 13,14 and 18 I’m travelling for example from Warsaw to Venice and on the 30th I would like to make a disconnected journey such as London - York. But after some unexpected events I would need to change it and travel from Bristol to Leeds* for example. Is this possible with mobile pass? 

    *I have one more concern that this would mean that the destination of my trip would be different from the one I submitted to the app.

Please adress my questions using numbers to avoid confusion

Best regards,
Krystian

  1. The app just registers your journey for your day, like you filled out a line on the paper pass. It doesn’t reserve anything. See it as your travel diary. It’s not connected to reservations what so ever. It just enables Interrail distribute the money fairly among the participating companies, depending on your travels :)

Activation of the pass is something else than activation of a travel day. Activation of the pass = starting the validity period (14 days, a month, two months, three,...). Do it on the first day you travel. 

You’ll always need to confirm if you use a travel day in the app. You activate and use travel days whenever you want during that validity period, but once you reach that day, you cannot cancel that day (0:00 CET). You can cancel safely before reaching that day. So if you just activate a travel day just minutes before taking the first train of the day, you’ll encounter no problems, nor will you risk losing travel days because of switching plans last minute or uneforseen circumstances.

  1. That’s possible, it’s done in seconds. If you want to take an other train, just register it in “My Trip”, and tap the ledger to add it to your pass (=ticket). You can freely remove and add trains. On a travel day, you can take as much trains as you want.
  2. All possible. It’s just as flexible as the paper pass is/was.

Sounds a complex, but it’s quite straightforward in the app. It just tries to transpose the paper pass in a mobile version :)

By the way:

There are many other ways to make a reservation than just via the Interrail website. You can go to the counter, but a lot is found online too.

You don’t need a pass to buy reservations when using other methods. Please check this page for all ways to get reservations:

Second by the way:

Don’t rely on the information in the rail planner app, but use the national planners or the planners of the train company you’ll be using. As the rail planner app has no information on delays, last minute track works or other real time information. Use www.Bahn.com or the db navigator app, as it has almost all up to date information for almost all of Europe.

Many, many thanks to you for claryfing this for me. That was a very helpful answer. All doubts aside, I am now ready to buy my Interrail pass.

Reply


Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy